** Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during Monday’s White House press briefing that President Biden’s vow to “shut down coal plants all over America” was “twisted” by the press. Addressing the crowd at a rally in San Diego County on Friday, Biden suggested that coal plants should be shuttered because they are no longer economically viable.
** The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $30 million in financial assistance grants to Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington. These grants, distributed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP), will help develop highly qualified science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students and foster a well-trained, technically skilled, and inclusive workforce.
** A widespread refinery outage was largely to blame for a gasoline price spike in California last month, but regulators have little information about how much of it was planned.
** The United States needs to make far faster and deeper cuts to greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades to meet international goals to rein in the worst effects of climate change, according to a government report issued on Monday. The draft of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, which is required by Congress to be published every four years, was released as world leaders and diplomats kicked off a two-week climate summit in Egypt.
** Four areas in Louisiana and two in Texas should be protected as critical habitat for a rare snake that eats pocket gophers and takes over the rodents’ burrows, the federal government says. Louisiana pinesnakes, which produce the largest eggs and hatchlings of any U.S. snake, have been protected as threatened since 2018.
** ConocoPhillips says it will begin work on the controversial $8 billion Willow drilling project in Alaska next year after generating $580 million in quarterly profit from its operations in the state.
World
** Sea levels have risen by an average of 10 millimeters since January 2020, reaching a new record high this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which issued a stark warning in its provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report, released Sunday.
** British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is poised to announce a major gas deal with America after the Cop27 climate change summit, The Telegraph can disclose. Talks about the “energy security partnership” are in their final stages, with the US planning to sell billions of cubic metres of liquefied natural gas to Britain over the coming year.
** Greece issued an advisory on Tuesday saying the vessel Sanco Swift will conduct seismic surveys to locate potential natural gas reserves off the Peloponnese peninsula and west and southwest of the island of Crete. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the plan during an interview on Monday, saying that the surveys will be carried out by ExxonMobil.
** The presidents of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt witnessed the signing of an agreement on Tuesday to develop one of the world’s largest onshore wind projects in Egypt, according to an official statement on the Gulf nation’s state news agency.